Odia jawan Saroj Kumar Das is among 23 army personnel missing in Sikkim flood

Bhubaneswar: An Odia jawan is among the 23 army personnel who went missing after a flash flood in Sikkim. He has been identified as Saroj Kumar Das from Kendudhipa village of Dighi panchayat under Kamakhyanagar police limits in Dhenkanal district, his elder brother Manoj informed.

Saroj joined as an Electronics and Mechanical Engineer (EME) jawan on September 21, 2009 and has worked in several states. He had married nearly seven months ago and earlier visited his village about two months ago. For the last time, Saroj talked over the mobile phone with his family yesterday night at around 10.00 pm. While talking, he said that he was in an army van as it was raining heavily.

The next morning, Saroj’s family got perturbed after they came to know from TV news that he had gone missing. Immediately, they tried to contact him but his mobile phone did not respond at all and showed ‘switched-off’. Later, they contacted the army unit and were confirmed about this.

Following the cloudburst and after the jawans went missing a search operation is underway.